While many of us are using Twitter personally, there are reasons to use it for organizations as well. Here are some options for Twitter that your church or organization may find useful:
Encourage members to subscribe to information via text. While you may know that anyone can receive a twitterfeed via SMS to their phone simply by sending a text to 40404 with the words "follow @twittername" you may not be fully leveraging this unless you have different Twitter streams. Organizations can set up a separate Twitter accounts to stream different types of content. For example, ABC affiliate WFAA runs multiple streams from @wfaaweather, @wfaasports, @wfaagreen and @wfaacoolstuff giving people options in the type of information they want to receive. Ask yourself what types of information you might want to stream separately.
Use Twitter to create a stream of real-time content on your website. Twitter makes it easy to incorporate your streams on your website. You can set the parameters of the widget to show a stream of your own tweets, or all tweets with a certain hash tag, or a list that you define. The widget can be animated as a feed--such as the one used by the Global Design Alliance to show the streams of its members or simply remain static. There are options to customize size and color.
Use Twitter to say thank you. When my firm first joined the conversations happening on Twitter, we discovered that people were mentioning us--in really positive ways. We saw when people recommended us and when they celebrated our projects. We even found people mentioning individual consultants on our team--even posting photos of them working late into the night. Staying active on Twitter allows you to respond. To thank people. And the best part is that it doesn't take much. Because you have to do it in 140 characters or less.
